


snow, girl, owl

by ABaskerville



Category: Maleficent (Disney Movies)
Genre: Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-01-25 14:57:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21358111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ABaskerville/pseuds/ABaskerville
Summary: “My blood runs with true iron. I am not afraid of the fae,” you announce, slipping out of reach, closer to your monarchs, drawing yourself as tall as you can, chin stubborn. “I will bring you the red powder that kills them.”The king inhales deeply, eyes glittering with a vision of victory as glorious as the ones that his father before him had accomplished against the fae. “Then you shall go to Ulstead, and honor us with a mighty gift on your return.”
Relationships: Udo (Disney)/Reader
Comments: 10
Kudos: 113





	1. Chapter 1

You didn’t know if it was the gown, or the headdress, or the jewels, but everything was too heavy, too hot, too tight. You clench your fists, breathed deeply – then couldn’t release it. Your chest strains with it, bursting, your heart beating too fast.

“Hilda,” you rasp. “It’s too much.”

String rustles sharply as your guardian pulls another loop behind you. “Nonsense, it’s coming along quite nicely. You’ll look wonderful walking down the aisle. Now…_brace_.” She pulls tighter, and you gasp, partly in pain. Skin breaks at your palm, and blood blooms on the pallid skin as red as the beads rattling against the brocade on your bodice. “Let me see.” She puts her hands under your chin, gaze appraising. “Fairer than a dragon’s bride,” she proclaims. “Perfect.”

Golden firelight makes monsters of the shadows in the hall. You bend your head determinedly down to hide your face as you stride close to the wall, avoiding the courtiers dispersing from the tables for tonight’s amusements. Somewhere too close, a familiar voice rings out in jest, and you flinch just as you break through the crowd.

“Something the matter, dear?” You dip into a low curtsy at the gleaming blue dress in front of you. “You’ve just missed dinner, and the duke wouldn’t stop wondering where you were.”

You glance up to a face screwed in concern. The queen’s brown hair was pinned under a headdress so elaborate it was a feat her delicate bones could hold it up, her dress brilliant as a night sky dotted with iron beads as stars. “The wedding dress had arrived,” you answer.

“Oh, splendid,” she smiles. She holds out her arm and you take it, letting her lead you to wherever the crowd was going for the evening.

Ahead, you could hear the king speaking loudly, trailed by a ripple of reactions from the train of people. The queen sighs. “What is it now?” she murmurs exasperatedly, pulling you faster. The voice rises and falls, and rises higher again, angrier than before, to which the cheers would answer in increasing heat.

“The crops were doing so well,” a distant complaint rings out. “Then all of a sudden they died, black as tar, right before we got the news about our beloved Ingrith! The fae are cursing us again, as they did years ago!”

“It might be retribution for this red powder they say she discovered to kill the fae,” one particularly rotund man with a yellow sash proclaims as they reach the gardens. Snow falls in a light dust, the trees around nearly bare for winter, and the chill crawling deep into your clothes as you hurry through the path toward the bright gazebo ahead. You can smell the desserts in the air, sticky sweet and colorful as childhood memories.

“Is that true, Your Majesty?” a woman with purple ribbons braided into her platinum head asks particularly loudly nearby.

Almost everyone looks behind at you and the queen, eyes heavy with expectation as they step back to allow an unencumbered passage. At the end of the line, the king stands, looking pensive as head of the religious order mutters in his ear. When you are close enough, he booms, “Well, wife? Has your brother answered your letters yet? Because Ingrith is indisposed from answering any more of mine, and the stories are spreading about this red flare that nearly drove the fae of the Moors back.”

“Husband, dear, must we come back to this every time?” the queen soothes, pulling her to her husband.

You hang back, and find yourself dragged back with a hand on your elbow. Cold breath comes at your ear, and the telltale scent of ashes tell you who it is without turning. “Where were you?”

“My lord,” you greet through gritted teeth. “I was on an errand for the queen.”

The hand had slipped from your elbow up your arm, now at your shoulder, crawling down your spine. “When we are wed, there shall be no more of these constant going about. I have barely seen you since I arrived.”

You try to shut out the voice, focusing instead on the babble of conjectures around, vying for attention. One exclamation silences the others, “Well, why don’t we just send someone there to check? Surely the king can’t deny a noble messenger as easily as the others.”

You’re being pulled by the sleeve toward the edge of the group, the evening chill settling in the widening space between you and the others.

“Princess Ingrith is confined in insolation for engaging the fae unprovoked, or so they say,” someone protests. “They will be wary of anyone visiting from our ranks.”

The man whose suggestion had first silenced the lot defends his idea, clutching on to his moment of importance. “Then send a girl for their new queen! Girls gossip – and even if that Aurora doesn’t tell our own her secrets, her maids will.”

Through the shoulders and the puffed sleeves, you could see the king’s fierce look, listening intently.

“What are you so curious about?” the duke hisses, pulling you so harshly your arm felt like it would tear. But you hold your ground, grateful for all the years on the saddle, on the field, keeping you from being dragged completely away.

“A girl!” someone repeats like a rally, enthusiasm spreading as surely as the wine being distributed into each courtier’s ringed hand.

“She’ll have to be brave,” another takes up. “They say some of the fae venture into the castle freely now.”

“I shall go, Your Highness!” the countess with the pale hair and the purple ribbons shouts, trying to push her way forward.

“She’ll have to be _young_,” was a gruff rebuff. A gale of laughter erupts. The duke utters a threat in your ear, and panic digs its claws in. You think of the knife on your sleeve. But even if you get it, what then? What happens if you do cut him? They will take his side. “We need a young girl, so the new queen will keep her close.”

More cheers. Another tug, and you slip on the white ground. A scream claws its way up your throat, the terror of wild things pushing all thought but that of escape out of your mind.

“I will go!” The ones at the edge of the party turn. The duke halts at their stares, and you pull away desperately. His hold slips, surprised at the sudden force, and you skid toward the crowd. “I will go to Ulstead!”

Entranced, they fall away, until you’re stumbling toward the king and queen and the holy man beside them. The king is thoughtful, and you ignore steadfastly the queen’s sharp shake of her head.

“You?” the king muses. The crowd was murmuring behind you, and in your periphery, you could see even the uniformed servants were holding their breath. 

The duke’s dark presence falls on your back. “Your Highness, we are due to be married next week!” he says heatedly.

“Your Majesty remembers how my grandfather cut down the chimera in the western caves,” you cut him off, pulling every bit of courage into your voice to steel it into something sharper than iron, colder than ice. “How my father now keeps watch over the borders.”

“Choose someone else!” the duke protests, hand reaching for your arm again.

“My blood runs with true iron. I am not afraid of the fae,” you announce, dancing out of his reach, drawing closer to your monarchs, chin stubborn. “I will bring you the red powder that kills them.”

The king inhales deeply, eyes glittering with a vision of victory as glorious as the ones that his father before him had accomplished against the fae. “Then you shall go to Ulstead, and honor us with a mighty gift on your return.”

Cheers rang out around you, and it is all you can do not to fall as the heady feeling of relief that floods you.

“Close the door behind you,” the queen bids her maid as you step into the private chamber. There’s a click, then a silence broken only by the crackling of logs in the fire. You stand unmoving by the door, waiting, watching a dozen indecipherable thoughts cross her face. Then, when your legs were growing frozen from the chill of the stone floor, she shifts. “My husband would bring us to war not just with the fae, but with my brother John as well.”

You let out a misted breath, clutching your fingers in front of you. “Forgive me, Your Majesty.”

“It was because of the duke,” she wonders. “Wasn’t it?” Your body locks in defense. “I saw your face tonight. You would’ve offered yourself for anything.”

Your tongue is heavy with a thousand swallowed words. You’ve talked to everyone you knew – and everywhere you’d turned, you found only vehemence and disdain. _Selfish girl_, you’d heard whispered. _Don’t you know how lucky you are? Your husband could give you a new dress and a string of pearls every day. What more do you want? _

“The duke is…perhaps not the ideal husband pictured by young women,” the queen continues. “But no marriage is perfect, and after the first few weeks, he will leave you alone. I can speak to the king to send him far away on a long mission, rarely able to return home. You need only walk down the aisle once.”

Another girl would’ve listened, been thankful for the kindness being offered. But the king’s acceptance had altered something in you. For a moment, you’d seen a future wider than the walls of a married woman’s tower, breathed free air. You wouldn’t give it up now, even if the world outside is dark and full of peril.

“There is still time to change your mind. No one would begrudge you to realize the folly of this mission over the security of marriage.”

“I would rather be torn apart by the fae,” you whisper stubbornly.

She looks at you sharply. “That might very well be your fate, if you continue this task.”

“I’m not afraid,” you repeat. 

The shadow lengthens then expands as the queen makes her way toward you, eyes intent. “Then I will make a deal with you.” You look at her uncertainly. “We will establish a code, and you will take my messages directly to John – I know the letters I send by messenger are read and relayed to my husband, and I cannot say all I need to – and you will follow his orders, whatever they are.”

“Majesty–”

“Ingrith may have found a weapon, but my brother has secured peace. Delay with your task, and perhaps we can see the fruits of their new alliance, convince my husband to go down the path of diplomacy instead of war. Perhaps we can even get the fae to restore our fields for the next harvest, if they had indeed cursed them again.”

You understand what she is saying, and you wished for it too, but, “if I seem to fail – if the king sends me back…”

“If you’re sent back, I will make sure you don’t fall back into the duke’s hands. He’ll find another girl, more suitable, less willful, while you’re gone. Prevent a war, and I will set you free.”


	2. Chapter 2

Whatever the dream had been, it was filled with stifling heat and the smell of ashes and the old panic squeezing its hands around your throat. You wake with a gasp as the world tilts wildly to the side, but it’s lost with the thump your head makes against the bedlam of the rattling window, the struggle between wheel and stone, and Hilda’s alarmed cry.

“What in god’s name –” Hilda yells with a thump of her fists against the ceiling when the carriage rights itself once more. Your head is spinning, a pain in your temple pounding a beat in time with your rushing pulse.

“We just entered the main thoroughfare to Ulstead, lady! It’s a mere hour to the city now,” came the answering reply outside.

Confusion abruptly forgotten, you pull off the blankets and peer out. The knight closest starts at your sudden appearance. You had not seen him in the training grounds, so he must’ve come from the borders. Today, his skin looks almost tan, flush under the bright sun in a clear blue sky. Home was an eternity behind, still wrapped in winter’s chill.

“Milady,” he ventures when you don’t speak immediately, dazzled by the light. “Apologies for the roughness. We did not notice the root until it was right under us.”

“A root?” you echo.

He turns in his saddle, gesturing a gloved hand behind. “Right by the threshold, an old twisted tree seems to have been missed by the road-keepers.”

Once spotted, the tree was hard to miss again, growing different from the ones around it, like a bent crone among a crowd of tall young men. It was right by the banks of a river, half-in and half-out in a precarious climb or descent. At your attention, it seems to turn, like someone cocking its head at a stranger’s attention. Quickly, you avert your eyes, and find your attention drawn to the great green place beyond the river, wild and mysterious. It seemed completely untouched by human civilization, as if no one dared venture an inch on that land for firewood or fruit.

“Is that–?”

He nods. “–the Moors, apparently.”

A wind ripples through the trees, and the distant hum of unintelligible birdsong and animal chatter rises. From the head of the retinue, the captain pulls his horse back level to your window. The younger knight snaps to attention while the older bent his head solicitously at you.

“It would be best if you kept hidden until we reach the city, milady. We don’t know how safe the road is.” He could mean bandits, but from the way he keeps glancing at the green place beyond the flowing water, you know it was not a human threat he refers to.

“But the new queen of Ulstead is from the Moors,” you point out. “That doesn’t put you at ease?”

He shakes his head. “There are always discontents looking for trouble. It’s best not to attract them.”

You relent in a way you wouldn’t have if the captain had been condescending, sitting as far back into the carriage without losing a decent view of the landscape. He disappears back to the lead, and shortly afterward, you feel the horses coaxed into a faster pace.

“Now then,” Hilda starts. “A few reminders.” You give her a long-suffering look, which she answers with an arched brow. “Young lady, you are here as a representative of the king and you will act as befits your family’s station. There will be no unescorted rides to town or the woods. No raiding their library or arguing with the scholars–” At your protest, she holds up a hand and barrels onward. “And no beating the courtiers at _anything_.”

You huff in exasperation, already dreading the eagle-eyed attention of your chaperone. It occurs to you now that without her old friends to chat with, Hilda will be more attentive than usual. The past few days have already been nothing short of a trial on your nerves, unable to escape the endless litany of rules young woman about to be married should follow. You couldn’t tell her about the queen’s proposition, not when you know she’ll oppose it and possibly compromise your position. You could only hope there will be ways to escape her when you arrive.

Farmhouses appeared with growing frequency, then the occasional farmer himself. Not long after, the castle rises in the distance, like a North Star charting your course toward the city. The outer gate was packed when you reach it, but people step back to clear at open path at your approach. They stare openly until you catch their attention, at which point they quickly avert their eyes and bow or curtsy, though they couldn’t know who you are. You wonder if any of them remembered Princess Ingrith’s own train from years ago, or if anyone recognized the same iron-carving of the carriage, the same blue-gray uniforms.

In front of you, Hilda was pulling out a headdress and a cloak from a box, and to distract yourself from the dread of wearing such unnecessary finery in this warmth, you drink in as much as you can of the city, pinpointing a bold pattern on someone’s dress, tracking down the source of a particularly mouthwatering aroma. Fervently, you hope you wouldn’t be stuck in the palace for the duration of your stay.

Then for the second time in as many hours, the carriage nearly tips over, trembling from a tremendous crash nearby. You’re thrown back, though being awake this time, you’re able to keep your head from hitting another hard corner. Outside, the horses are screaming in alarm, and people’s voices had risen. You couldn’t see anything from the window, a flurry of dust swallowing everything.

You push out the door before Hilda could grab your skirts, stumbling out coughing at the dust. Your entourage had broken position, and you couldn’t find any of your escorts. You follow a flash of blue-gray uniform ahead, until a horse that must’ve unseated its rider suddenly breaks through the haze. You catch its reins by instinct, narrowly missing being trampled.

You stand coaxing it into calm while the dust settles, revealing a great heap of stones fallen from a watchtower above the castle wall. Some of the guards were pushing back bystanders, and you could see your own escorts tending to one their own propped against the wall, likely the one who’d lost his horse.

You hear a child’s cry and turn in time to see a boy rushing past. Without thinking, you drop the horse’s reins and grab at him. He drags you forward in his wake, and you barely manage to stop him before he crashes into a crowd of guards urgently digging through the rubble.

“Keep back!” one of them commands, and you struggle to restrain the boy. You could see now the cause of his distress. A man was pinned under the stones. There was blood on his head and his eyes were shut.

“_Father_,” the boy wails.

You take him aside and kneel, taking his face in your hands to divert his gaze away from the man under the rubble. “The stones are too heavy. You will only get in their way,” you tell him as you wipe at his cheeks with the pad of your thumbs. “Let them pull him out, and then we will take him to a physician, _yes_?”

“Yes,” he whispers timorously.

“Are you alright?” You attempt to brush your sleeves against the rest of the soot and dust that had smeared on his face, but he wiggles away. “What is it? Does it hurt?”

“You’re getting your dress dirty,” he says, flinching further away from the white cloth.

You couldn’t care less about the stains, concerned as to your next step. You could shoulder the injured man’s medical expenses as necessary, but if the man is dead…did the boy have a mother? Any relative?

The captain’s voice rises above the noise, calling out your name. You spy him in flashes in the crowd, looking at the other direction, toward the carriage, Hilda wringing her hands at his side. As you stand to call their attention, the crowd parts to let a man flanked on either side by children pass.

But man is perhaps not the right word. His hair was ash-white, his robes pale as fresh snow. On his back was pair of massive wings, creating a natural barrier between him and the other bystanders, and horns sprung from his temple.

Fey, your mind supplies numbly. You had never seen one so close, or one so nearly human.

Unconsciously, you pull the boy closer to you, but he had spied the two other children, running to envelope him into a tight embrace. They had left the winged man to follow at a slower pace. The guards shoot him wary looks, but they make no movement to stop him, and you find yourself pushing the children protectively behind you. Somewhere in the crowd, Hilda must’ve spied the ongoing situation, if her familiar piercing scream was anything to go by.

The fey stops a few paces away, and you held your breath when a breeze passes by, ruffling the strands of your hair and the feathers on his wings. The smell of snow-covered pines wafts up your nose, the scent so vivid you’re surprised your breath doesn’t come in a cold mist when you release it, your mind so convinced you were back home – not at the castle, but _true_ home, your father’s home, your childhood home, on the edges of the tundra.

The metallic clang of armor jolts you back into reality as the captain rushes toward you, shielding you in turn. His sword was already halfway out the scabbard when the children behind you erupt into panicked overlapping shouting.

A dark-skinned guard steps forward and holds up a hand. “There is no need for that. We are at peace with the Moorfolk now.”

You feel a tug at your skirt, at your sleeve, and find yourself being beset on all sides. “He’s good,” one of the new kids declares. “He saved us before,” the boy whose father had been hurt adds. “He can help!” the last girl declares.

Your brows furrow, but they looked so convinced that finally, you decide it was best to follow the local sentiment. The captain had not relinquished his hold on the sword, and you clamp a hand over the hilt to push the blade back into the scabbard. He looks back at you in disbelief, but you avoid his gaze as you steer him to the side, out of the way when the three kids rush to take the winged man’s hand and lead him forward. You catch his curious glance as he passes, the smell of winter in his trail. You didn’t know if the captain detected it too, because he himself took a sharp intake of breath, before taking control once more.

“You should not have left the carriage, milady,” he says sternly. His voice wavers from emotion, perhaps anger, perhaps concern. “We need to get you inside the castle as soon as possible.”

You only half-hear him, your eyes drawn to the kneeling figure of the fey, trying to comprehend how gently those clawed hands could touch an unconscious man’s head, or why people were letting him. At his quiet word, the three kids jump to their feet, asking the crowd for clean cloth.

“Milady,” the captain insists, going so far as to put a hand on your elbow to steer you away.

“Wait,” you tell him in a daze, pulling out your own handkerchief and proffering it to the little girl who first caught your eye. She skips excitedly toward you, then hesitates when she touches the silk. “Take it,” you insist. She looks up at you slowly, from the slippers on your feet to the crown of your head, open realization on her face.

“Go, child,” the captain says gruffly.

“Milady,” she chirrups, dipping quickly in a curtsy before running away.

“We _must_ go,” the captain says lowly. “We have already caught too much attention.”

The winged man receives the handkerchief with a thoughtful tilt of his head, and you tear your eyes away before you could decipher the look on his face. Everywhere else, the crowd was staring wide-eyed at you, your clothes, the captain at your side. Their murmurs made the blood in your veins hum, and finally, you let yourself be led away, wondering if you were in a dream after all, one you hadn't had before.


	3. Chapter 3

Queen Aurora was young and warm as a spring day, even as winter approached their land. She’d stood at your arrival, and warmly waved away your apologies for disturbing their afternoon tea before kissing you on both cheeks. There was a perpetual flush on her own, and flowers woven into her straw-blond hair, her gauzy dress made for sunlit days.

King Philip was more formal, but no less welcoming, acknowledging the goodwill offered by the Ironlands and declaring that you and your company shall have the best of care during your stay.

Together, they ask after your court, and you after theirs, in light of the recent transfer of power and news of unrest in the borders. The subject of Queen Ingrith was touched upon, but quickly abandoned in favor of more diplomatic subjects. When the tea was finished, the fae-raised queen had you calling her by her first name, with an invitation to join her whenever you had finished settling in.

The room you were given reminds you of the cottage in which you’d grown up. It was marble-walled, yes, but it smells of gardens, with roots and branches of a flowering ivy creeping in from the window. Leaning out, you see the rockery laid out with stately pathways, right up to the river separating the castle and the Moors.

So close. You are close to the Moors. You can see the brutal outcrop of stone described in the merchants’ stories, of where Maleficent lived. Shuddering, you turn your attention to the room once more. The bed was covered in a pale blue sheet and labored under a great many pillows, and there was a writing desk on one corner.

For the first time since you’d left, you let go of the tension on your shoulders, the strain against your spine. For a long time, you had been afraid that something would go wrong, that the king would change his mind, perhaps never let you leave, or call you back in the middle of the journey. Maybe Aurora would not like you, and send you back anyway.

Now, you feel almost free. The room was spacious and open, unlike the restrictive tower back in the Ironlands reserved for those closest to the queen. The court outside did not know you, would not see you with eyes judging the daughter of their foremost commander for the slightest mistake, or the future wife of a powerful noble from a line almost as old as the king’s.

“Mother preserve me,” Hilda exclaims as she suddenly arrives at your door. Over her shoulder, you could see the valet she’d intercepted standing with your luggage with a startled expression. Hilda wrings her hands as she comes inside, looking at the room with horror. “It’s so…floral, and–”

A breeze blows through the window, a little chilly with the promise of lateness of the year, but vibrant with the scent of the white blossoms of the ivy. Hilda sneezes. And sneezes again. Then once more. The valet had hurriedly put your bags in the spot you’d indicated by the time she recovered herself.

As much as she could anyway. Most of those in the Ironlands court had a terrible allergy to pollen, an allergy you were spared because your family estates stood at edge of a young and man-made forest.

“Are you alright, Hilda?” you ask solicitously.

She was clearly not as she pats at her watering eyes. “My dear, we can’t _stay_ here.”

“It would offend the queen to ask for a different room, and will place me far away from her suite,” you reason, not inclined to tell her how much you loved it. “I’ll request for a separate room for you instead, one where you will be more comfortable.”

“But then I shall be far away from you!” Hilda protests.

_That would be lovely._

“I shall no doubt miss your careful attention, but this is a new court, and we must adjust accordingly.”

She hesitates, fretting over your things as she pulled out your dresses and started smoothing them out on your bed before hanging them up. You were afraid she would try to soldier through it when another breeze wafts through the room, and the sneezing resumes.

By the end of the hour, your wardrobe and toilet had been completely unpacked, and you had finished a discussion with the chamberlain as to alternative quarters for your chaperone. You personally saw Hilda to the room too, just to make sure she doesn’t change her mind, before asking after the entourage who’d accompanied you on your journey.

You find them settled in the barracks, and learn from the captain that they will be returning to the Ironlands in three days. In the meantime, you are not to hesitate to come to them for anything, even for an escort to the city.

To your surprise, the one who’d lost his horse was the young guard you’d spoken to on your journey. He had flushed uncharacteristically red when you ducked behind the curtain giving him privacy from the other patients in the infirmary, and had insisted on sitting up to speak with you. 

He’d tried to warn the others before moving out of the way, which was how he’d been caught in the rock fall. A bandage was wrapped around his head for his troubles. At your sincere praise, he flushes again, and given his name as Victor. You promise to return the next day to check on his progress, and though he insisted he was fine, he didn’t say you shouldn’t come back.

Dinner was served in your room, upon the queen’s instructions. It came with a note that wished you a good rest after travelling for days. When you slept that night, moonlight spilling onto the floor of your room and smell of things that grow in air, you wished you could forget you had to return home one day.

It was the third time someone had smiled back at you, and the third time you had to remind yourself it would not do to seem so happy.

And yet you were. Happy. You had woken early and dressed in one of your lightest gowns before Hilda could make her way to your room. Every new hall you meandered into was new and interesting, painted in light colors and in subjects leaning more toward festivities than glorious battlefields, and no one raised an eyebrow at your apparently aimless wandering. You were delighted to find not one, but two libraries, the second tucked private and cozy in the eastern wing. The banquet hall had an entire wall open to the elements, with a sweeping balcony that looked out into the rushing river and the wide gold and red sweep of the Moors, which seemed to be the favorite view in the palace.

And the kitchen – you had walked out of that one with two steaming buns wrapped in a towel in hand and many apologies to the cook, who had taken one look at you and decided you were too pale and too skinny and ‘darling, if I don’t have you plump by the next moon, I shall hang myself’. You hoped it was only a jest, for you quite liked the utter decadence of the pastry she’d given you, sweet as syrup and candied fruit.

The other pastry, you gave to Victor, who finished the whole thing in a few bites. You asked after the meals they’d given in concern, and he laughed.

“Infirmary food is never palatable,” he says, “So thank you for remembering me.”

“If you promise not to tell the nurse, I shall endeavor to sneak in more food.”

“I won’t say a word,” he promises.

You were still laughing at some story he’d recounted about a trio of boys who’d been rushed in with stomachaches for sneaking into someone’s pantry when you went back out into the sun. The warmth of it seeped into your skin, holding out against the chill of the changing season. 

That was how you noticed the boy climbing down from the wall in the shadows beside the infirmary. He could’ve been twelve or so, with a scrubbed face that had taken a smudge and hair sticking to his head from his efforts. Carefully, you positioned yourself so he didn’t notice you until he’d landed on his feet.

You step into his way, raising your hands in peace at the terror on his face.

“I hope this isn’t on account of a dare, for you will be in a lot of trouble if the guards caught you,” you tell him.

To your consternation, his mouth trembled, and his eyes started to fill. Overcome with worry, you kneel and pull him close.

“What is it?” you ask.

“I need to talk to the queen,” he whispers.

“Why?”

He pulls out a letter from his jacket. It doesn’t escape your notice how worn the leather is, though effort had been made to clean it. “My mother is sick again, but the apothecary has run out of the herb she needs.”

“What can the queen do to help?” you ask, wiping at his cheeks.

He sniffs. “The herb grows in the forest. We’re not allowed to go there today because it’s the full moon, and it’s off limits. But the queen can go! She has to go!”

“Okay, okay,” you try to soothe him. “We’ll look for the queen, alright?”

You wipe at his face with another handkerchief. Hilda will start wondering what happened to all your handkerchiefs if this keeps up, but you know it’s for a good cause.

You only hope as you take the boy’s hand and march into the castle that the queen would see it so. Aurora had been very kind, but some royals were like that – kind to some, but not to others. You weren’t quite sure what to do if the queen refuses the boy, but you’ll find a way to help him.

Eventually, you track down the chamberlain, who said the queen would probably be in the markets at that time. Aware of time passing, you rush to the stables and took a horse. You’d planned your first visit to the city on foot, to better see everything, but you also knew a horse would allow you to go faster. The confused hostlers had to repeat your request when you ask them to put a regular saddle instead of a sidesaddle, certain they heard wrong, and you push down your impatience in favor of understanding.

After, you urge the black mare through the market crowd, searching for Aurora’s flower-crowned hair, or any glimpse of a pastel colored gown. It took a very insistent baker selling buns before you realized you could simply ask the people if they’d seen her.

“How many are you in the family?” you ask the boy seated behind you.

“Just me, my mam and my older sister. She’s a maid in the palace kitchens,” he says.

“I’ll take three,” you tell the baker, paying him with coins from a sewn pocket hidden behind the ribbon on your waist. “Have you seen the queen?”

“You just missed her, lady,” the man answers, little friendlier after your purchase. He hands the wrapped almond loaves and hands them to the boy upon your direction. “She’s finished her shopping and gone to the moors for the monthly festivities.”

Your heart sinks. The moors…you weren’t allowed in the moors.

You glanced back at boy, who looks at you with resignation in his eyes, along with a few more tears.

“Is your mother truly very sick?” you ask quietly.

He swallows a sniffle, then nods. “She won’t be able to sleep until she gets her medicine, because it hurts so.”

You close your eyes and steel yourself, deciding then and there you wouldn’t be able to sleep yourself if you let this boy down.

“Tell me where you live,” you tell him.

The house he lives in is small and old, but seems to be neat, much like his clothes. You help him down and peer in to see a shadow shivering in the blankets, and bids the boy to stay while she tries to get hold of the queen.

“But she’s in the moors!” the boy protests desperately.

“That just means it’ll be easier to get the herbs, doesn’t it?” you answer as lightheartedly as you could.

You take the apothecary’s instructions before shooing him inside, then swung yourself in the saddle, heading for the mass of green foliage and tall outcropping in the distance.

The guards at the bridge tried to stop you, certain you were going the wrong way. It took you using a commanding voice to tell them you were on official business before they reluctantly let you go.

“We would go with you, lady, but it’s the full moon and–”

“I understand,” you say as you cross to the other side. Immediately, you notice how much wilder the grass are, how green. The forest rustles in a thick canopy above you as you enter, following not a clear path but a winding opening between the trees.

The sounds of the forest keep you on guard, not letting you forget how alive, how awake, the landscape around you was. Here and there, you catch a flicker in the corner of your eyes, but you kept your gaze forward and laid your hand where it could reach the knife under your sleeve quickly.

You don’t know how far you’d gone before you allowed yourself to entertain the possibility of not finding Aurora at all, and that you had no business being here when the townspeople had prudently decided to stay away for the day. At the onset of hesitation came the realization that it had become very quiet, the critters in the bushes and the birds in the trees gone mute.

An entire childhood of watching your father train hunters and soldiers had you squaring your shoulders and allowing all your senses to absorb your surroundings.

You catch the stir in the air, the shadow swooping down, almost too late. You twist in the saddle just as a massive weight crashes into you, throwing you unto the ground.

You keep your knife trained on his neck, hands steady as he bars his teeth at you, unmindful of the hiss against his skin where iron pressed. His face was rough and made of broad strokes of bone, his horns twisting cruelly from his temple.

“Didn’t anyone tell you not to go to forest today?” he growls, the sound like a storm coming from his chest.

“I have an urgent matter to bring to the queen,” you reply as evenly as you can.

Back home, you would’ve dispatched this faery already, or he would’ve made a killing blow instead of throwing you off. But you were in Ulstead, where the humans and the fae share the same queen, and had to tolerate each other.

As much as possible anyway.

You would not hesitate to kill this one if he made the wrong move.

“Ah, and how do I know you’re not lying?”

Another figure lands nearby, and you squash the fear that thrummed under your skin. There were two of them now. The odds had shifted. If you were to survive, you had to move–

“Borra, let the lady go,” came the cool reprimand. “It does us no favors to have you attacking humans when the queen has promised safe passage.”

Borra, the fae who had you pinned, clicks his tongue and does not look away. “It’s the full moon, and the Moors belong only to us on this day.”

A pale clawed hand grips his shoulder, and then he’s being shoved off. That same hand is extended to you in assistance, and you find as you look up to familiar white robes and an unruffled face.

“I’m sorry about my friend. Please allow me to assist you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay healthy and safe everyone!


	4. Chapter 4

You breathe in winter’s chill and pine, and kept the knife between you and the fae as you pulled yourself to your feet. In your periphery, you were aware of Borra doing the same, taut with open temper.

“You can try to be as nice as you want,” he hisses, “But they’ll never see you anything but a beast, Udo.”

Udo. So that was his name.

He puts down his hand and steps back to give you space. “That doesn’t mean I will act like one.” He cocks his head curiously as he studies you. “I remember you from the accident yesterday. You are not from here.”

Your chin lifts defiantly, your shoulders straightening. “I come on behalf of their Majesties of the Ironlands.”

Borra scoffs. “I should’ve known when I saw that knife.” He spits at the ground beside him, as if trying to rid himself of a foul taste. “Murderers and thieves.”

Udo’s own thoughts were hidden behind that impenetrable calm. “Perhaps it isn’t a good idea to let you go any further,” he says quietly.

_No_.

“It is an urgent matter that I bring to her,” you persist.

Borra comes close, entirely too close. You could feel the heat of him clashing with his companion’s chill. “Aurora doesn’t ask her ladies to step foot here, no matter how urgent. She knows there’s only so much they can take.”

“What I can and cannot do depends on her needs, not my misgivings.” You take a steadying breath, and lower the knife, just a little. “There is a boy in town whose need cannot until tomorrow. It is for him that I come.”

Borra folds his arms stubbornly. “And what does he need?”

If you refuse to answer, would they let you go?

You could see no other choice but forward.

With your free hand, you pull out the apothecary’s note. Borra snatches it from your fingers, ready to be unconvinced as he inspected its contents. It gave you some pleasure to see the disdain in his face crack a little before he hands the paper to Udo, who regarded it wordlessly.

Finally, he looks at Borra, who sniffs derisively and shoots up to the sky with a powerful flap of his wings.

Udo gives a small sigh, refolding the note and handing it to you. “Wait here.”

He brushes past and folds his hands behind his back as he made for the patch of trees to your left. You track the flash of white cloth until it disappears, and as the minutes passed, you wonder if they had left you stranded.

Finally, you catch the neigh of a horse, and your mare came through the undergrowth, Udo some ways behind. You feel your blood drain from your face. Every horse from the Ironlands is trained to attack fae on sight, and yet this one…

You almost shy away when the horse approaches, nudging you as if aware of your hesitation. Eventually, you give in, and press your forehead back, running your hand down her neck before mounting.

You keep your knife unsheathed on your lap as you follow Udo into the undergrowth.

A tiny flash of color, dragon-fly winged, whizzed past your cheek and alighted on Udo’s shoulder after some time.

“Who is she?” asks a little voice.

To your alarm, several others came flitting past, some laughing as they played with the skittish horse’s mane, others stopping some ways shy of your face to stare curiously back.

Your hand tightens on the hilt of your knife, knuckles white with the strain of holding still. Every bit of your skin prickles, as if you were developing allergies.

One of the tiny things wrinkles her nose and leans toward her companion in a mock-whisper. “She smells of freshly forged iron.” She made it sound like the most terrible of faults.

Another screams as they peek under your saddle and find the iron-studded base.

“That one will bite if you keep harassing her,” drifts Udo’s light voice.

As one, the creatures squeal and leave you be, flocking to his robes in panic instead. Their little voices overlap into a cacophony as they ply him with questions and demands.

Around you, shadows you mistook as animals at first turned out to be fae. Most of them had the skin of forest creatures, but with eyes that spoke of intelligence. You nearly scream when a tree leans down to take a closer look at you.

In all your life, you never thought you’d come so close yet so unarmed and alone with these creatures, and at any moment, you expect one of them to hex your horse’s legs or start nipping at your exposed flesh with razor sharp teeth.

When Udo glances over his shoulder to check on you, you push all your will into hiding your fear.

_If I die, foolish as I am, I shall take as many of them with me._

You were so deep in such thoughts that it startles you when the forest cover abruptly ends, and you step into a sweeping meadow. Every manner of fae played in the open, like flowers and bushes that had come to life. Laughter like bells echoed – until they saw you. Everything stopped, both movement and sound.

Your darting eyes find Aurora, who jumps to her feet in surprise, upsetting the creature on her lap. More of the tiny faeries scatter away from her hair and dress, protesting as she rushed toward you.

Udo bows a little at her approach, and she pauses a moment to address him.

“Thank you for bringing her,” she tells him, touching his arm to show her regard.

His mouth tugs into a smile before she moves on, and inclines his head at you before taking allowing some of the insistent fae to draw him away.

You drop into a tenuous curtsy as soon as you dismount, one hand on your horse for support. Your knees were a little shaken, and suddenly, you were nervous. Perhaps she doesn’t want to hear of human petitions while she was holding court here.

Any thought of censure is dispelled when you pulls you into an excited embrace. “This is the first time someone followed me here,” she whispers into your ear before letting go. “Except for Phillip, of course. And King John, but only once, and there were guards.”

You pull yourself into a mask of composure and offered the apothecary’s note. “The boy had been desperate enough to sneak into the palace for your help. I thought–”

“Oh, this plant!” Aurora exclaims, recognizing it immediately. “It’s a good thing you came, because it can only be harvested before the night of the full moon. Then you must wait for the new moon to pass before you can find it.”

“If you tell me where to find it, I can get it myself.”

She looks at you thoughtfully. “It’s very brave of you to do this. Of all the days, though…it was lucky that it was Udo who found you.”

The memory of the brash Borra flashes back. With effort, you admit, “I am grateful that he defended me against his kinsman.” Her eyes went wide, and you hurriedly tried to make light of the matter. “I was made aware at every turn that the full moon belongs to the fae. It was a risk I took.”

She nods resolutely. “The plant is located close to the river, but it is far from here. If you wish to beat nightfall, you will have to go cross the river there instead of doubling back. I shall send Udo with you, since you two are already familiar.”

She half-turns to scan the eagerly listening crowd, and waves Udo forward from the shade of a tree near the outskirts of the open court. He approached serenely.

“Will you help her gather the plant, and see her home?” Aurora asks.

He nods, bowing a little as he did so.

She smiles at the two of you, and grabs your hand while you waver at the thought of following him into the forest again. “If by chance, you become interested, come back here after you’ve delivered the medicine to town. You’ll be safe as my guest.”

You find your horse’s mane and hair in a shocking braid twined with flowers. “Darling, what have they done to you?” you whisper as you patted her down, feeling for any hidden cuts or bite marks from fae mischief.

“They appreciate you coming here, the other fae,” Udo says behind you. You whirl around, but he was a respectable distance away, regarding you with some amusement. “If you do not like it, I will tell them so.”

“It’s fine,” you swallow, mounting quickly. “Lead on, please.”

“What happens if a human stumbles upon your celebration by chance?” you couldn’t help but ask.

You had been following him in silence for some time, every sense on alert. In your periphery, little creatures buzzed past, easily mistakeable for butterflies and bees if not for the almost human cadence of their noise. And more than once, you were alarmed to glimpse a shrub moving, until a pair of wide, shy eyes looked up at you.

Udo looks back with a curious tilt of his head. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” you echo disbelievingly. “Then why have you scared everyone so?”

“Because humans take advantage when we’re not looking,” he answers. “And there are not nearly enough of us to keep safe every fae who flocks to the court for such a night. Only months ago, fae were stolen and used as experiments.”

A chill ran down your spine. You’ve heard rumors that Queen Ingrith had conducted such experiments to make the red powder.

“If the danger is so high,” you say, “then surely the punishment can’t be nothing.”

“Perhaps we’ll scare them a little bit, so they go no further.”

“And if they don’t turn back?”

He arches an eyebrow. “If I tell you, would you use it against us?” He notes your silence. “You do not trust me.”

Your mind raced. You needed information. “I trust you a little more than I do the others,” you allow, “because I’ve seen you with children.”

“But?” he prompts, very astutely.

And you try to be honest, because he will see if you weren’t. “But I wonder if it’s just a mask you wear when the sun is out.”

Your heart beats madly when he slows, until he is shoulder to shoulder with your horse and you could feel the winter of him brush against your fingers where they clutched the reins.

“If you look long enough, the nature of all things reveal itself,” he says, meeting your gaze. “Unfortunately, most people look away in fear too soon.”

“Hesitation kills,” you reply, trying not to look away as he’d said.

“Misunderstanding kills too,” he responds. Then he holds out his hand, and you flinched. He drops his eyes and touches your horse with the tip of his fingers instead, prompting it to stop. “We’re here.”

You feel strangely chastised, and couldn’t look at him as you note the sudden formality he had retreated to as he explained that the plants you needed could be found in the roots of these trees. You listen intently, and kneel by the gnarled roots of the wide but not very tall trees, recognizing the drawing on the apothecary’s prescription. Little purple bulbs, tiny as mushroom growth, pepper the moss.

“Do I just pluck them out?” you call out in hesitation, stopping yourself in time from doing as you pleased.

He was quite far away, but he turns and nods.

You hold out a piece of your dress to gather the plant in, remembering that you’d already lost your handkerchief wiping the boy’s face earlier that day. Suddenly, little hands tug at your hem, and you jump as tiny stick-like fae scramble back at your attention.

Tiny voices drifted up, and your brows furrow. “I’m sorry?” you ask.

The chattering becomes louder, but you still had to bend down cautiously to understand that they were warning you about the stains. The sap couldn’t be washed off. You wonder if they’d seen Aurora deal with that problem before.

“I don’t have a choice, though,” you tell them. You pluck out a bouquet of bulbs, barely filling your hand, and immediately, purple stains drip down your palm, as if the plant were bleeding.

You watch a drop fall to your skirts, but never make contact. Your fae companion had crept up without your noticing, and the drop seeped into the pale cloth in his hand, like expensive dye.

Your breath was caught in your throat at his proximity. Here was the creature your people warn against, showing his true nature. _This_ was why hesitation kills.

But then he pressed the cloth under your hand, and let you take it to wrap the plants in, and stepped away without a word.

You couldn’t move for a long time, feeling as if the world had gone under you. You didn’t know what to think, and you took your time harvesting more of the plant, just so you could get your thoughts in some semblance of coherence before you stand up and face him again.

Except he isn’t there. You scan the trees, wondering if he’d left. Had you offended him beyond apology then? To believe so was to change everything you knew about them, to accept that they were more than beasts and were as complicated as humans.

You feel terribly horrible about yourself as you mount your mare, though the old Ironland part of you was certain it was for the best.

You’re scanning the light of the sun for directions when Udo’s voice drifted up to you.

“Are you finished?”

You find him some yards away, crept near again without your awareness. You hide your relief behind polite gratuitousness. “Yes. Thank you for the cloth.”

“I remember you gave yours to the wounded man yesterday.”

With that, he turns toward your left, and drifts through the trees like a ghost. You laced cold hands against your mare’s mane and urged her to draw close to the white-winged fae.

“I’m sorry,” you say, though what you’re apologizing for exactly, you couldn’t quite say. You’re sorry about your manners? Your upbringing? Your sense of self-preservation? “Where I come from, fae blight harvests and hex woodcutters and trappers.”

Thank the skies, he looks at you again. “You’ve been at war for a long time then,” he says, “Only grief and anger can twist fae into such creatures.”

“What do you mean?”

“Blighting, hexing,” he enumerates, “these are dark magic, a poisoning of the life-giving gifts fae are born with. It harms them just as much as it harms the victim, because it is unnatural.”

There was accusation there, and you feel defensive for your own people. “They have been like that for as long as we remember. We have only defended ourselves from it.”

“Do you not remember why it started?”

You rifle through your memories, went back to the deep nights of your childhood, when the wind howled outside the tower window and the guards have been forced to seek shelter into their bunkers, watching the shadows beyond the estate.

“They say a faery had ensnared our prince. He would go to her in the forest, and stay from dawn till dusk. When the king found out he was thinking of marrying her, he forbade it, because he was already engaged to a foreign princess.

The prince and the entire city took sick. Guards were sent to make the faery release her spell, but they caught her instead on the prince’s sickroom, trying to poison him. They imprisoned her, promising to release her when she gave the cure, but she didn’t. She died the same day that the prince did. The spell lifted the next day.

Still, over next months, strange things began to happen. The grain spoiled in the silos. The water would be filled with dead things. Pleas did nothing, only fire in the forest. We have been at war with them ever since.”

You finish the terrible story, and he was silent the rest of the way until you reach the riverbanks, a bridge and an outpost of guards ahead.

“I’ll take it from here then,” you say. “You should go back.”

A hand stops your horse just under the eaves of the forest. “Did you ever wonder,” he says quietly, “if the faery had been trying to heal him, instead of kill him?”

Your brows furrow. “But he’d gotten sick after he stopped coming to her.”

“It was a long time ago,” he says, “things always get lost in the telling, especially when blood starts spilling.”

From the corner of your eye, the guards had become restless, made aware of your shadowy presence in the trees. The sun was low in the sky, and the day fading, but you couldn’t let go of the look on Udo’s face, his eyes far away as if seeing the events play out again before him. Could fae do that?

Would you believe him if he said your story was wrong?

After a moment, his gaze clears, and he looks up at you. “I will wait here until sunset, for if you change your mind about Aurora’s invitation.”

“You mean, go to the forest at night?” you say in disbelief.

“The full moon celebration is beautiful,” he says. “You can judge for yourself if we turn into monsters after dark.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lock down was busier than it was when everything was normal.  
I hope you're all safe and healthy!
> 
> As always, comments and feedback are welcome :)


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